Village Shepherd

I recently watched a documentary of Prince William's life, made to celebrate his twenty-first birthday, his final coming of age. Soon after their mother died, both the princes went with their father to Canada, where the young Prince William had a rapturous reception from thousands of screaming teenage girls.

Although the young prince was very pleasant and polite to all the onlookers, as soon as he escaped the public gaze by going indoors, according to the documentary he said, "Phew! Thank goodness that's over!"

It was clearly an ordeal for him to be the centre of so much attention, with so many people demanding to touch him and crowding in on him. It's said that the one thing the Royal Family would like above all else is to be ordinary - to be able to come and go as they please without bodyguards and without crowds and without the media. And that must surely be so for a young man only just turned twenty-one.

It seems from today's reading that Jesus and his disciples felt similar pressures from the crowds. The disciples were just back from their first mission. They'd started from quite a low point in Jesus' ministry, for he'd just been rejected in his own home town of Nazareth when he sent the disciples out in pairs to teach and heal and spread the good news of the coming of God's kingdom.

It must have been quite a frightening experience for the disciples. They'd just seen the rejection suffered by their leader and the hostility shown towards him by his own people, yet they were sent out with no backup. They took no spare clothes and no food or money, so they had to either sink or swim by relying on God and on their own efforts.

We're not told explicitly the results of that mission, but we do have this one short sentence: The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. The impression is given that they couldn't wait to tell Jesus everything they'd been doing. But even while this was going on, many other people were still coming and going and we're told that Jesus and the disciples had no time even to eat. So Jesus suggested that they all went away by themselves to a kind of retreat. They clambered into the boat and went to a lonely place, which was probably intended to be somewhere up in the rocky hills and mountains of Galilee.

But people aren't stupid even when they're in a crowd. The crowds saw them sailing away and knew immediately the sort of place for which they were making, and went ahead of them by road. That's the disadvantage of a lake like the Sea of Galilee - it's easy to see which way a boat is going and it's relatively easy to get to the same place round the shore.

Most people would have felt utter despair on arriving at somewhere which was supposed to be a retreat only to find crowds and crowds of people thronging the beach. But Jesus didn't easily lose his patience, and when he saw the great needs of the great crowds, he had compassion on them.

On this particular occasion, the needs sound like spiritual needs rather than physical needs, for Jesus saw the crowds as sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them many things.

We're not told what the disciples did during this time. Perhaps they were able to rest, or perhaps they helped Jesus. Whatever they did, in due course they all climbed back into the boat and rowed right across the Sea of Galilee to the other side, to the Gentile side.

Here they were met by yet another crowd, for Jesus' fame had spread even to the gentile regions. But this was a different crowd. These were people who needed healing, for everyone ran to collect all the sick people they knew and bring them to Jesus.

And they didn't leave Jesus alone for a moment. Wherever he went, into villages, towns, farms or marketplaces, they followed him. They laid the sick on mats in front of him, and begged to touch him, even if only to touch the fringe of his robe. And everyone who touched him was healed.

What a contrast to that previous experience in his home town of Nazareth, where he was treated as of no account and where he was unable to heal many people.

We Christians, we churchgoers are now the eyes and ears and hands and feet of Jesus. And the mission of the church is still very much as it was in those early days. We are still called to teach and to heal and to spread the gospel.

Some people need spiritual sustenance, just as those people did who wouldn't leave Jesus alone when he and the disciples were looking for a quiet retreat.

Other people are sick and need healing. Of course, we all need healing, it isn't simply restricted to those who are physically sick. Healing encompasses broken relationships and previous hurts and memories which damage and injure us. All of these leave us as less than whole people, people whom God is longing to heal.

Sometimes Christians feel that they may never say no. As the feet and eyes and ears and hands of Jesus, Christians feel that they must keep going until they drop. They feel that they must be forever helping others, and may never think of themselves.

But this is a kind of false economy. It might be possible if none of us needed healing ourselves, and we were all exactly like Jesus. But we're not exactly like Jesus, we're exactly like those mortal disciples, who needed their rest and quiet and retreat.

We humans are no good to anyone if we burn ourselves out. We're no good to anyone if we're unable to give them the attention and the help they need because we're spreading ourselves too thinly. As Jesus recognised, we need our rest and recreation.

So even if you're not going away, take time out this summer. Make sure you become as whole as you can be, so that you're fit and ready to continue the Lord's work of healing and teaching and spreading the gospel.